What Do You Believe

VIDEO: What Do You Believe?

When someone asks me, "What do you believe?"
It usually follows a discussion on something wildly controversial.

Do you believe in ALIENS?

Do you think there are mysteries behind the symbols on the U.S. currency?

Was there a place called ATLANTIS?

Do you think there are real PSYCHICS?

Is there one God or many different GODS?

Does the Bermuda Triangle exist?

Do you believe in REINCARNATION?

Is karma real?       Do you believe in ghosts?

Is it possible to bend time and space?

I'm sure you get the picture... the list of questions could go on and on. What I can say about MY BELIEFS is that it is so very open to possibility. All things are possible! What we experience in this earthly existence is but a small fraction in comparison to the mysteries of the universe. I have a magnet on the refrigerator that simply states: BELIEVE. This truly is the basis of all knowledge. You must BELIEVE!

At the foundation of My Belief System is that positive forces have one source -- God. Anything else is the absence of God. I would like to always be on the positive end of the spectrum... distributing light, love, knowlege, and truth.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
Though I'd like to say that I live for the here and now.... what would probably be more accurate is that I'm excited about what happens next. What happens when my physical body ceases to exist? As I age and progress in my earthly development, what will happen when my heart stops beating and my brain stops working? We have all experienced the loss of a loved one. I love imagining reuniting with each and every one of them. Oh how I miss my grandmothers. (I have never known any of my grandfathers, they all died when my parents were children.) I miss my cousin Jason who was like a lightbulb inside a dark room. His charisma was infectious. I miss my dear, departed friend Michele (pronounced Me-sha-lay). Her humour is what I miss in my day-to-day. My Belief System includes the possibility, the ability, the reality that I will meet them again.

COMPASSION
My intention, in dealing with people, animals, the earth, nature, etc. is to feel total compassion. Can I hurt any of these things if I feel compassion for him/her/it? Compassion can be equated with pure-love-energy. It sounds whacky but it actually goes back to a more ancient way of thinking.... a very Eastern philosophy of caring for nature and loving all living things. All of Asia (including India) practice reverence for nature. Native American tribes, Polynesian's, Hindu's, etc. All honor the bounty of the earth and express gratitude for the abundance of resources available to man. I think it is beautiful and is so much a part of who I am. This world is so beautiful. The least I can do is help to care for it the way I would like to be cared for. To love humanity and each individual soul. We are all children of our Creator!

CREATED TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE "LIGHT"
I believe that we are all here to do magnificent things. We are an extension of God and should rise to meet the expectation. It's tough to have such a lofty BELIEF SYSTEM and fall short of it on the daily. However, I want my expectations to be something I must strive for rather than something that comes with ease. I am reminded of the story about the butterfly in the cocoon. The butterfly receives strength in its wings by pushing against the cocoon and attempting to break through it. A person observing this may slit open the cocoon to assist the butterfly but this act would, in fact, cripple the butterfly and render its wings useless. We are all created to do significant things that will contribute to the "light",  to the positivity in the universe.

In reading over what free-flowed from my mind, to my fingertips, through the keyboard. My conscious mind is in agreement. These are my basic beliefs (along with what I said on my video):
~God is the founder of positive vibes.
~I live to prepare for the next life. ("Prepare to meet God")
~Compassion/ Unconditional Love for all of God's creations is something I would like to practice in all my actions.
~We are born to testify of God by contributing to the "light" in the universe.

What do you believe?

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Atlantis Photo Credit
Cosmos Photo Credit

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Sunday Sermon Revisited: My Alabaster Box

Ten years ago I wrote a post about a passage in The King James Version of The Bible, Luke chapter 7, verses 36-50. It is still my most favorite scripture because of the message of forgiveness and acceptance. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that my niece performed, "Alabaster Box" by Cece Winans at the Nu'uana Central Seventh-day Adventist Church. This song is about my favorite scripture and the experience of the woman who washed Jesus feet with her tears. My niece did a wonderful job showing her lower range. One day, hopefully far ahead in the future, she will really come to feel the meaning of the lyrics.

I am not a very religious woman. Even though I have attempted walking the path of a disciplined life, the woman I am today feels so constricted by religious edicts. The God I worship should make me feel free and not imprisoned by ideals. The macro view of God and the Universe is so much larger than one can comprehend. In a multi-verse of infinite possibility, why would God limit praise and worship to one way and one system? I will never understand this. Blame my pride or maybe my limited vision but I believe God is so much more than can be contained in religion. And yet, I admire the eternal principles and positive values espoused by writers in all religious texts from the Koran to the Bible to the way of the Tao and everything in between. I admire devoted parishioners for their perseverance and dedication to their selected path but at this point in my life, I am just an admirer and a student of spiritual and eternal thought from all "isms."

Forgiveness is such an important part of personal growth. Though I was raised in a staunch Christian home by a very strict Samoan mother and I was taught that I needed to confess my sins to a servant of God, I do not hold that belief today. I believe that each of us have a "God/dess" factor inside of us. It is part of our being. We are Gods in embryo and thus forgiveness of short-comings must happen within and not from an external element.

This song, Alabaster Box, is a wonderful story of forgiveness and the joy that comes after finding unconditional love. Forgiving myself for my indiscretions and shortcomings doesn't mean that my past is wiped away. Rather, forgiveness means that I love those parts of me and vow to make better choices moving forward. I could never look back at my life and wipe away the times that I thought I was "sinful." Some of my most favorite memories happened during those times. The most personal growth happened when I evolved out of those times and I would never wish to wipe them away. They are facets of who I am and help me to be compassionate and non-judgmental of someone else's path toward enlightenment.

I am drawn to these lyrics in the song:

Don't be angry if I wash his feet with my tears
And I dry then with my hair
You weren't there the night He found me
You did not feel what I felt
When he wrapped his loving arms around me

Our personal sacrifices to give up who we were is no one's business but our own. And as we bow to whoever it is we worship, let it be because we feel deeply in our spirit that the time to change is at that moment and the time to release all the pain of our suffering is held in that moment. And then we let go and move forward. We love those parts of ourselves that we felt so conflicted about whether we think they are sinful or ugly, embrace that as another facet of our being that makes us more kind and more compassionate. There is no room to hate any parts of ourselves. It bars us from feeling unconditional love for us and anyone else that might be struggling with the same issues. God is love. I am love. You are love.

So today's Sunday Sermon is about opening up your own alabaster box to tuck away all the pain and sacrifice to be shared one day with someone who frees you from it.

Happy Sunday!

Humility and Tender Mercy

A dear friend of mine sent a song to me over the web. I don't know if it's because I had posted on Facebook that I visited my mom's grave that he decided to send me the song. For whatever reason he did, I am grateful for the message I received from hearing it. It has been on repeat all day. Well Done by Deitrick Haddon is the song. The lyrics are quite simple and the music is beautiful but the pleading in Deitrick's voice is so compelling. I embedded the video at the bottom of the post. Maybe you can let it play as you read this post.

These past few months have been difficult for me. The divorce from my husband of thirteen years really did a number on me. An unexpected event like this has really humbled me and brought me to my knees. I find myself so hungry for spiritual enlightenment; to feel the spirit of the Creator around me. I hunger for it above any search for love and companionship. I don't quite know how it all works but a few experiences in recent months have forced me to recognize God's tender mercies in my life and I am grateful.

Both my mother and father are staunch Christians. Though I was raised with such a strong foundation, I find that my curiosity for other spiritual practices is so much stronger than my Christian background. And yet, I have a soft spot for the teachings I was raised to believe. Above all, Love is paramount. Compassion. Forgiveness. Service.

The first couple of weeks after my ex said he wanted a divorce were extremely difficult. Extremely! I found myself crying myself to sleep all throughout the day and all through the night. Part of me was so upset and disappointed with my husband's decision to walk away from our relationship. I thought of how I would now be alone in the world and that I would grow old without a companion to journey through life with. I thought of my parents who were married to each other until my mother passed. That's forty-plus years of commitment. Coming up, I didn't know very many marriages that ended in divorce. My parent's generation was true ride-or-die relationships, so to see my second marriage come to an end just about tore me apart. My loyalty is so fierce and so powerful. Why wouldn't a man want that kind of woman in his corner? I know my value and I cannot understand why a man would trade me in.

In those first days, I leaned heavy upon my popps and my older brother for comfort. I am fiercely independent and rarely ever ask anyone for help. But the pain of this broken heart could not be soothed without help from above. My popps and my older brother laid their hands upon my head and put a blessing on me so strong and so powerful that I was sobbing.  I have never seen my father cry, in all of my 41 years, not even at my mother's funeral service. But that day, as he prayed over me, he choked up and I could hear him cry and felt his tears drop on me. We felt so strongly the spirit of my mother all around us. I felt her holding me up, and drying my tears, and telling me that everything would be fine. God's tender mercy was upon me that day because I rarely feel my mother's presence. That day, in those moments with my father and older brother, we felt her all around us and I knew that I would be just fine. I knew that I was not alone.

On a recent trip to "the South." I was driving on a lonely road. It was late at night and most of the roads in Georgia and South Carolina are not equipped with street lights. My drive from Atlanta through Georgia and South Carolina was a great time for me to clear my head. The long monotonous drive gave me plenty of time to be alone with my thoughts. My life since splitting from my ex-husband has been a roller coaster ride of ups and downs, of decisions and indecision, and full of so much change. I really needed that distance from all things familiar to think through the pressing issue of where I want to take my life.

My drive that evening should have happened much earlier than it had, meaning I should have been driving while it was still daylight. My arrival in Atlanta was four hours delayed. I should have made it to my destination by 7p but with the delay, it was now estimated to be 11p. As I made my way along the roads, I was just about 70 miles from the coast. That's where I wanted to be - the Coast. I wanted to look out on a different ocean than the beautiful Pacific. Perhaps, I could make a life along the banks of a new body of water; far away from the Pacific. I love the Pacific but I feel a wave of change surging inside of me and I am going to ride it to wherever it takes me.

The GPS had taken me along a very lonely road. I had not seen a car for miles. I felt like I was in an episode of Scooby Doo. Every town I had ventured through was dark and void of life. Spooky. Creepy. I felt like I had stepped back in time and I felt very alone, like the whole world had turned their back on me. I almost shed tears thinking I had made a big mistake for getting on the road all alone, in a place that was completely unfamiliar to me. I approached a fork in the road and went right instead of left. I had to back track, turn around and go back to the fork and take the left. I distinctly remember uttering out loud, "God, please watch over me. Please get me where I need to be safely." Inside, I was slightly terrified and feeling like I had made so many mistakes in my life and it was manifesting on this road trip. The delay with the airplane, the long and lonely drive through the darkness, taking the wrong road; these were all little events that were heavy on my mind as I made my way toward the coast.

Imagine pitch blackness, not a single street light, just the stars to light my way and the solitary light beams from my rental car. From the right side of my periphery, I see a deer shoot out into the lonely road. The animal was taller than my car and it's antlers were large and well-developed. The excitement of nearly reaching my destination had suddenly turned to panic as the large animal collided with my vehicle. It happened so quickly. As I think through the collision and slow it down in my mind, I am humbled and in awe of my experience and the tender mercy of God's hand in those moments.

Upon impact, all of the airbags in the vehicle deploy and there is a strong burning odor. I was so stunned and in a state of shock that I don't realize that I may have been in danger by remaining in the middle of the road or that possibly the burning odor could mean that the car was on fire. I was just in utter disbelief. I have heard horror stories of people getting knocked out and bruised by the airbags. Every single airbag had been spent. There was one at my feet, one that came out of the steering wheel and a curtain alongside the sides of the car and from the top of the windshield. I have also heard stories about the severe bruising that comes from the seat belt holding you in place. I had not lost consciousness but I was definitely dazed.

God's tender mercy was upon me because I did not have a single scratch on my body. I was not bruised. I did not suffer any whiplash. My back was fine. When Highway Patrol arrived, the Officer told me that the deer was back several yards away and was indeed dead. I felt a tinge of guilt for having taken the life of the deer without doing something useful with it's sacrifice, like maybe feeding a family. And yet, all I could feel was gratitude for being fully alive and not a single scratch on my body. I was definitely shaken up but feeling nothing but God's love upon me for watching over me so closely even when it seemed as if I did not deserve his/her watchful care.

Both events, feeling my mother around me in late September on up to the trip that found me on the side of a lonely road with a wrecked car in January, were eye-openers to how closely I am loved and cared about from on high. Even in my most sinful pursuits and dark behavior, my mother is reaching out to me from beyond the grave and God is watching me, ever caring for my safety and well-being. Thank you dear friend for sending me this song. It prompted this post. The song had me reflecting on God's hand in my life. I kneel in humility and am strengthened by the thought of seeing my mother again.


I just wanna make it to heaven
I just wanna make it in
I just wanna cross that river
I wanna be free from sin
Ooh I just want my name written (Oh Lord)
Written in the lamb's Book of Life
When this life is over